


22 Northumberland Street

by weeesi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Blind Date, Case Fic - Lite, First Kiss, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:13:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5694316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeesi/pseuds/weeesi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He clears his throat and stumbles into the restaurant before the door closes in his face and he loses his nerve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	22 Northumberland Street

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a tumblr post that listed hundreds of prompts and one was something along the lines of being stood up on a date and somehow meeting each other instead. Also, I realise Angelo's address is not actually 22 Northumberland Street (since that's the address they conduct surveillance on from Angelo's) but hey, creative license and all that. 
> 
> This short little fic mostly happened because of a cloudy afternoon. Thanks for reading.

John Watson has a problem.

John Watson has two problems, actually.

First, he’s forgotten to finish some Very Important Paperwork for Gloria at the surgery and she’s squinting daggers at him with pinched eyes beneath her fringe as he rushes out through the double doors past her desk, mumbling half-hearted apologies as he escapes into the chilly January night. The door whooshes shut behind him on the end of something that sounds very much like _to you and yours_ and he doesn’t much care to imagine the beginning.

Second, he’s already 10 minutes late for his meet-up.

Meet-up.

 _Bloody buggering hell,_ he thinks to himself as he marches down the pavement in an effort to hail a cab. _Date. It’s a fucking date._

John Watson hasn’t been on a proper date in just over a month. Christmas was a disaster. Effectively drunk on mulled wine at the surgery’s fancy dress party, John had very nearly gone home with a very eager and very stupid intern before he conveniently saved himself by heaving his guts out in the corner cubicle in the gents’. And poodle-eyed Gloria at the surgery certainly isn’t cutting it, not that he’d ever consider it a remote possibility. His own hand and his two-thirds-empty bottle of Boots £1 lotion after a bleary-eyed night in front of the telly is all the action he’s gotten in the last month, and if he’s going to be honest, it’s awful. Getting off is one thing, getting off with another person is something else entirely. And John, quite frankly, misses it.

Not to mention, you know, relationship stuff. Also.

He’s allowed Rachel, the pretty brunette nurse who dotes on him like a favourite cat, to set him up with someone after she’d pushed into his office one Wednesday afternoon and insisted she knows someone who would be tremendously perfect for him. So John thinks, all right, and numbers are exchanged, texts are sent, and Saturday night is decided upon. Saturday night at about… fifteen minutes ago.

John lifts his arm and tries for a cab again.

The car sloshes dirty street water onto John’s oxfords as it pulls up to the kerb. A rare and early snow has given way to sludge that seems somehow to melt during the day and slowly re-solidify at night, to the irritation of commuters and the joy of naughty children and dogs.

“’Evenin’, mate. Where to?” The cabbie yawns through the open window, his breath a muffled cloud in the unpleasantly nippy air. 

“Uh.” John fiddles in his pocket, thumbing at his phone as he opens up the text message. “22…Northumberland Street.”

“C’mon in then, out the cold.”

The door sticks and John pulls at the handle twice before managing to wrench it open. He slides into the back seat, dawdling with his phone, staring down at the scratched screen and praying that the cabbie will take the gesture as a plea for silence. He is not rewarded.

“Big night tonight?” The cabbie smells faintly of Jelly Babies and tobacco, the cab of upholstery cleanser. 

“Mm?” John feigns one last attempt at ignorance, mimicking the sending of a text as he lets his head thud against the cool glass of the window.

“You off to watch West Ham and Arsenal at the pub? Like to be there meself, but least business ought to pick up in an hour or two, eh mate?” Left turn, right turn. Right turn. Stop. Most cabbies in London were relatively quiet; some even were silent. This one evidently was not. “You a West Ham fan? I’ve been since I was, what, probably fourteen, fifteen. Innit funny, now I’m nearing bloody sixty—“ left turn, left turn, right turn, stop, right turn, another bloody stop, right turn, long straightaway, left turn, stop, straightaway, another stop, right turn, right turn, straightaway, left turn, another series of turns and straightaways and turns, and John’s forehead feels frozen to the window, the cabbie’s words a steady-dull buzz in his head: “—which is why after a month I told her, _You out your bloody mind, Denise!? Your mum, think what’d she say!_ And she end up with that footballer anyhow. Two kiddies by the time she’s twenty-five. Poor sod! Never stood a chance, bless ‘im.” The cabbie laughed, a surprisingly harsh bark of a sound.

John hasn’t even realised to the extent that he’s zoned out until suddenly there’s talk of Denise and her mum and her two kiddies and he wishes more ardently that he’s ever wished for anything in his life that he had just taken the Mother Fucking Tube.

“Look, I’m thirty-five minutes late. Are we getting—”

“Right, mate, ‘ere we are then.” The cab stops up beside a rather posh-looking small restaurant. Orbs of yellow-white lights glow through the paned windows, haloing couples and groups of friends as they chatter and nibble and drink and generally look enviously _happy_. John roughly rubs a hand through his hair and licks his lips. No sign of his date, not that he knows what his date looks like. He hasn’t been on a blind date in years and he’s suddenly not sure that this was such a good idea.

“This it, innit?” The cabbie arches his neck to check the stylishly painted sign above the door. _Angelos’ Italian Bistro, 22 Northumberland Street_. “Ah, well.”

“Cheers, mate.” John reaches for his wallet, pays the cabbie, and mutters something he hopes is encouraging about West Ham, _or was he for Arsenal? Shit_ as he climbs out and back into the frosty pavement. The cabbie shouts a chipper thanks before he speeds away into the night, off to find his next unassuming passenger.

 _So what if you’re late,_ John steels himself, _it happens. You’ll explain and apologise and hopefully—_ His thoughts are interrupted by the jingle of the door opening and a tall woman and a short man, hand in hand, push past him smelling of garlic and wine. The woman bites her lip as she smiles a secret at the man and the man curls his fingers over the denim stretched over her hips, stroking, pressing into her softly, and John feels a sympathetic twitch in his trousers. He clears his throat and stumbles into the restaurant before the door closes in his face and he loses his nerve.

Angelos’ Italian Bistro is nearly full, maxed out with people enjoying the start of the weekend, and John looks around rather sheepishly to see if anyone is sitting unaccompanied and looking rather annoyed. No one, to his surprise, is alone. A burly, kind-looking man with a ponytail and wearing a rather spotless white button-down catches his eye and comes over. 

“Hello, sir. Have you got a booking for this evening?”

“Hi. I, um, I’ve got one, yes. For about 40 minutes ago now, I think, is it that table there? With the sign?” John says, words running out in a jumble as he points at the empty booth by the window with a _Reserved_ placard placed squarely in the middle. Before the man can respond, John twists again to glance around the restaurant. No other tables seem to be empty, save for maybe…one…but he can’t quite tell for certain before the man claps him on the shoulder and smiles.

“Ah, popular table, that one. Prime spot. Go on and take a seat, sir, I’ll be back with a candle. More romantic.” The man winks, a kindly and encouraging thing, and turns to go. John eases himself down into the booth with his back to the window, _hang on, then how will they know it’s me here and waiting_ , he thinks as he shifts into the other seat with his profile to the window, then remembers it’s a blind date, feels like an idiot and moves back to his original place. At this point he’s fairly certain a woman is eyeing him from across the tiny bar along the far wall and he feels his cheeks flush.

The man returns, a lit candle nested in one hand and a pair of menus in the other. With a flourish, he sets down the candle and arranges the menus at right angles to each other and to the empty wine glasses whilst subtlety shifting the red tin of forks from the center of the table over to the side. The air is scented with the smell of cinnamon and orange and basil and Parmesan cheese and John realises he is absolutely peckish.

“You are still expecting someone?” The man hesitates, his hand over a glass.

“I am. I’m late but I think…has anyone come before? ‘Round eight?” John glances at his watch. “I got held up at work.” He nearly apologises to who he can only assume must be Angelo and stops himself as he remembers that he is not, in fact, here to see Angelo.

“Spot on, there was someone who came in around then. Left probably ten minutes ago.”

“Did they say anything about who they were waiting for?” The back of John’s neck starts to ache. _Shit._

The man shakes his head. “Sorry, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like. It’s our last round of reservations for the evening and I’m not one to turn away a customer once he’s in my door.” The man grins and proudly adjusts the tie round his neck. “Can I interest you in a bottle of wine, or a cocktail—” 

“Wine, please. A bottle of red...pinot whatever.” John manages a mild smile and re-scans the room in pathetic hopes of spotting a single soul, his abandoned date, or a melancholy loner that he can talk into joining him at this large and very empty booth. The man weaves his way through the room, stopping to chat at a table or two before disappearing behind the bar and gathering John’s Public Bottle Of Wine For One.

 _They must’ve left,_ John thinks as he chews on his lip _, but who wouldn’t’ve. Forty minutes late to a fucking first date. Top marks, Watson._ He consoles himself by stealing a glance at the woman who’d been eyeing him up earlier. Her back is turned how and she’s leaning into her girlfriend’s ear, whispering something that makes the other woman’s eyebrows shoot up nearly to her hairline. A chorus of laugher and the clink of cheers’d wine glasses mingles with the garlic-scented breeze from passing breadsticks. John nearly downs his first glass of red as soon as Angelo pours it.

“I take it the wine’s satisfactory then, mate?” Another wink. John was beginning to wonder if Angelo had an undiagnosed eye problem, was keen on John, or just really fucking liked winking.

“More than, thanks. I’ll wait to order, in case—” John folds his hands over his menu.

“I’ll check in after a bit. Sometimes he’s rather late,” Angelo reassures as he turns on his heel and gathers up emptied plates from the next table over. With that, John is momentarily confused – _he? Rather late? Who the hell is_ he _? –_ before once again feeling the clandestine gaze of sympathetic onlookers and realises he’s rather like the baby Jesus in the nativity play: centered under the spotlight up on the podium, with not a wit what was going on and somehow expected to not fuck it up. Plus the aching feeling of wanting to burst into tears only to be nestled safely away from prying eyes. But John was not the baby Jesus, he thought as he poured himself another glass, water into wine bugger all.

Nearly half the bottle later, he suddenly notices that he’s finished nearly half the bottle. Feeling rather pathetic for having to refuse Angelo’s repeated offers to order and also starting to feel a bit buzzed thanks to his empty stomach (his lunchtime cheese and tomato really didn’t last long, did it), he’s allowing himself to rest his chin in one hand as he twists the stem of his wine glass with the fingers of the other. He tries not to feel sorry for himself and he feels very sorry for himself. Finishing a bottle of wine alone in the front window of a posh restaurant is not the worst thing that’s happened to him by a long shot, but maybe he ought to head home to that bottle of lotion and call it a draw. The door opens and shuts and a gust of icy air blasts John’s bare ankles under the table. He lifts his glass to his lips to take the last sip and finds himself caught, trapped in the steady gaze of tall, curly-headed stranger. Their eyes lock like magnets and John surprises himself with a little gasp against the rim of his glass.

The man is stunning, truly, all angles and cheekbones and he’s wearing a coat that probably costs around a thousand quid. His cheeks are dusted pink from the cold and his eyes are piercing John, pinpricking his skin as he looks him over and through and John feels distinctly like he’s a specimen under glass, splayed and dissected, which for some reason he thinks the stranger kind of likes and John kind of likes as well.

 _Who_? John’s brain manages to think.

“No.” The tall, curly-headed stranger says. 

“Well.” John says.

“You’re at the wrong table.” The stranger simply shrugs, as though he’d just reported the evening’s temperature or the colour of the paint on the walls.

“Sorry?”

“You’re at the wrong table. That’s my table. I have it reserved for 9.00.”

“Maybe you’re at the wrong table.” John is pretty sure his eyes are still on the man’s eyes and not traveling over the man’s (hidden but surely outrageously, obscenely gorgeous) body.

“There’s another Reserved sign on the table over there.”

John wrenches his eyes away from the stranger’s to look. “That’s two women.”

“Ye-es.” The stranger draws out the syllable as though illustrating a particularly complicated concept for a kindergartner.

“I’m not.” John swallows. “My date. I’m not here for a woman. To meet a woman.”

“Neither am I.”

“Plus they’re already two. They’re together…hang on, y-you’re not. You’re not here to meet a woman?”

“No.”

“Good.” For the second time in as many minutes, John surprises himself. “I mean, I.” His brain decides to give up.

“Don’t mind if I do.” The stranger eases himself down gracefully into the seat next to John and shifts gracefully out of his coat, folding it onto the seat next to him. He’s wearing an impeccably tailored dark blue suit with a steely gray-blue button-down, the top few buttons left undone. John suddenly feels rather shabby in his jeans and jumper. “Ah, 2005 Rue Champlain. Nice bottle for drinking alone. Bit spendy for a single man on an Army pension in London, but I suppose being stood up does wonders to the balance of one’s wallet.”

John thinks he’s possibly, no, definitely heard wrong. “Sorry?”

The stranger squints, again sucking John into his _green-blue-grey-what-colour-are-his-eyes-after-all-they’re-all-sorts-of-colours-oh-god-stop-staring-you-idiot_ gaze.

“You’re clearly ex-military, probably wounded in action, you’ve recently overcome a psychosomatic limp so it’s clearly an upper body injury…shoulder or bicep? You’re staying in London because you want to, not because you can comfortably afford it, and you’ve missed your date tonight. Stood up.” The stranger’s mouth is very pretty, John thinks, as he watches the stranger pop his consonants, particularly the _p_ , which sends a little shot of air up toward his curly fringe and makes his lips part in a way that John definitely, for sure, is not attracted to.

“I was not. Stood up.” John adjusts his position, crosses, re-crosses his legs as he twiddles with his empty glass. “He was here and he left. And how the hell do you know that anyway?”

“I didn’t know, I noticed.”

John feels his mouth open and close. He knows the squeeze of the muscles in his jaw is mirrored in the squeeze of his fist over his knee and as much as he’d like to say something snarky or get up and leave this arsehole to pay for the £80 bottle of wine, he can’t. The stranger smiles and John hates him and John kind of wants to pull him out the back door by those inky curls and snog him against the filthy alley wall until the knees in those posh trousers buckle.

John clears his throat and frowns. “You noticed.”

“Yes.”

“You noticed all that.”

“Yes.” The stranger gives him a smile now, a surprisingly sweet, soft thing that doesn’t match the sharpness of his features. “I did.”

“How did you possibly _notice_ that? Hang on.” He feels his eyes roll of their own volition.  
“It’s you! You’re my date. Rob, isn’t it? Did Rachel put you up to this?” John feels a laugh somewhere behind his ribs that feels like it might punch its way out. The absurdity of it all.

“First off, do I look like a _Rob_?” the stranger says disdainfully as he plucks the wine glass from between John’s fingers and gestures over to Angelo, who scurries over in a moment. John catches a whiff of expensive smelling aftershave as the stranger leans across the table to pinch at the forgotten menus. “Secondly, is Rachel a German national?”

“Who?”

“Rachel. And how long ago did you stand her up?”

“What?”

“Evening, Angelo.” The stranger smiles warmly as he takes the man’s hand. “Another bottle, the 2000 Saint-Emilion. And the prawn linguine.”

“Anything for you, Sherlock.” Angelo gives John an encouraging look. “Told you he could be late.”

“Sorry?” John feels his brow knotting. He hates repeating himself and he hates feeling behind and he somehow senses everyone else has seen the cue cards before he’d gotten his chance. Angelo gracefully plucks the menus from the stranger’s – _Sherlock’s?_ _an unusual name_ – long, elegant fingers – _get yourself under control, Watson_ – and also rounds up a clean replacement wine glass for John, seemingly out of nowhere. John’s tongue feels thick as he tries to work out moderately recognisable words. “Prawn linguine.”

“Your favourite,” croons Sherlock, with a wink at Angelo.

Angelo shuffles away to talk to the neighbouring table, buffering compliments on the house tiramisu.

John’s brain rewards him with language.

“Right. I’m not getting whatever _this_ apparently is, so I’ll leave you to it. Dunno who you are or how you knew all that stuff about me, but nice…meeting you, I guess. What was it…Sherlock?” John eases himself to the side of the booth and gathers his wallet out from his jacket pocket. He throws a wad of cash that he can’t force himself to count out properly onto the table before holding out a hand. “Well. Good. Enjoy the prawn linguine and the Saint Millionaire wine or whatever. Cheers.” His hand floats in midair, unshaken as Sherlock stares blankly at him.

“Nonsense. Stay until my dat—for another 15 minutes. I’ve ordered you food.” 

“What, you’re not eating?”

“It slows me down. And put your money away.”

“Then what are you doing in an Italian restaurant?”

“Same as you.”

“Embarrassing yourself?”

“Waiting for someone who’s already left.” 

John feels the realisation lap over his brain like a wave. “You were on a date too.”

“Wrong.” Steely-blue eyes suddenly sharpen their gaze beneath furrowed eyebrows. “Was not _on_ a date.” Under his breath. “Yet.”

_What?_

“I’m…meeting someone.”

“Yeah, for a date.”

“No.”

John realises his hand is still hanging there looking for a partner and drops it to rest on the table. _Don’t be an arsehole. He’s been stood up too and he’s just trying for another go. Bit…weird way to go about it, is all._ John crosses his feet beneath the table as he rubs a thumb over the back of his other hand, hesitating. He lowers his voice, conspiratorial, his tone that of a reassuring mate. “Look, I get it. It’s happens to the best of us. Getting stood up, I mean.” Sherlock’s features warp into something strange as a woman passes by, a particularly assaulting cloud of floral perfume cloaked about her. “Sometimes people fuck up, and they don’t know what they’re missing. I’ll drink to that.” John scans the room for Angelo and the next bottle of wine. “So.” He chews his lip. 

The stranger’s eyes turn bright, piercing as he perfectly enunciates, his words hurried but his gaze steady as lips, teeth, and tongue mesmerise John. “Newly opened bottles of the obviously horrendous _Avec Mon Amour_ have been found at the scene of no less than four double homicides in the last seven months. Less than one millilitre from each of the perfumes has been emptied and in its place, a compound mixture of cyanide and liquefied sarin. Lethal within moments once inhaled and topical application severely burns the skin, resulting in nerve damage. Three of the victims were forced to swallow it.”

John considers that he should probably look more alarmed.

“Sales of the perfume in London have been staggering in the last several months—popular enough, you’ve probably seen the adverts—but recently a particular counter at a particular shop has been doing quite well. Extremely well. When plotted on a map, the locations where the victims’ bodies were found form a perfect outline of the perfume bottle’s shape with the shop at the centre. This restaurant is the missing piece, the final dot that finishes the outline.”

John thumbs across his eyebrow. He should be more alarmed, he thinks again: this is a complete stranger, a stranger who just ordered him prawn linguine (which yes, is his favourite) and knows about his being shot in Afghanistan and is startlingly, spectacularly attractive. A stranger whose name is Sherlock and who is some undercover police officer or something, apparently.

John realises, in that instant, that he is destined to have met this man this evening. Leaving now would be impossible, like trying to turn off a lamp without a light bulb. 

John clears his throat and hopes his face assumes a casually interested look. “Right, so implications being: there’s some connection between the owner of the perfume and murders. And you think something’s going to happen here tonight.”

The stranger looks momentarily stunned.

“Astounding.”

John feels the tips of his ears heat. The secret pleasure at having impressed this strange creature is frankly alarming and he tries to hide it in his chest. “Well.”

“How did you _possibly_ arrive at that conclusion?”

“Isn’t it a bit obvious, you just—” Shock morphs into amusement, but not unkindly. Sherlock’s eyes are soft and his mouth quirks into a sweet sort of v shape. John groans, suddenly feeling like an idiot. “Ah. You’re having me on.” Green-blue eyes look at John through eyelashes. A weird moment passes between them. _Are we flirting?_

“Your bottle of the 2000 Sante Millieon, Sherlock. Prawn linguine should be coming in a flash, sir, what was it?” Angelo arrives tableside and uncorks the bottle, allowing Sherlock a small taste before pouring two glasses and looking over to John. An effortless flick of his wrist prevents any drops of wine from spilling onto the smooth wooden tabletop.

John glances over at the stranger. _Sherlock. This man’s name is Sherlock and thank god Rob didn’t give me a chance._

“John. John Watson.” He extends a hand to Angelo, who takes it warmly.

“John. I hope we’ll be seeing more of you and Sherlock in the future.” Another bloody wink.

“Right, well—“

“Ah, your candle’s gone out, gents. I’ll collect a new one for you.” And Angelo, for what seems like the millionth time, turns on his heel to leave.

“Okay. Stop. Before this goes any further.” John feels a bit like a telly with the picture gone all scrambled.

“You’ve got questions.”

“Yeah, a few.”

“Go on then.” Sherlock takes a luxuriously slow sip of wine. John swallows.

“First. How did you know that stuff about me? Afghanistan, my…leg. You came in, sat down, and what. Read my horoscope or something?”

Sherlock narrows his eyes on John as he sets down his wine glass. “I know it the same way I know you’ve got medical training. Army doctor, right? Invalided and now working in a boring surgery.” John blinks as Sherlock continues. “You stink of disinfectant, there’s an ink spot on your left thumb in a particular location only made by repeated writing on a prescription pad, you rub the back of your neck without realising there’s no stethoscope to readjust, you’re wearing oxfords with inserts aimed to prevent lower back pain from the random combination of standing and sitting all day, and you unconsciously monitored my inhalations after I entered the restaurant, probably noticing that my decreased lung capacity in transitioning from cold to warm air is due to a history of smoking cigarettes.”

“But.”

“No need to worry.” Sherlock pushes up the sleeve of his suit jacket to reveal a beige-coloured square stuck to his forearm. “Nicotine patch.”

John releases the breath he’s been holding. _I am in way over my head_ , he thinks, as Sherlock blinks coolly at him. The front door opens and closes, blasting their little corner with cold. A man wearing a smart green jacket steps in and wipes his feet on the rug. Sherlock’s eyes flicker over to him.

“Got it. And second, you’re—”

“—not on a date.”

“—here to catch a murderer?”

“Just when you were doing so well…” Sherlock mutters before he suddenly shoots out of his seat and sidesteps his way through the maze of occupied tables through to the back of the restaurant before quickly exiting out a _Staff Only_ door to the right of the open kitchen. John is left with an expensive bottle of wine, a neatly folded thousand-quid wool coat, and the sudden feeling that being stood up and then quickly abandoned is also not the worst thing that’s ever happened to him by a long-shot yet still has the power to rather ruin an evening.

He swirls the dregs of his wine before putting the glass to his mouth. He feels it slide down his throat. _Sod this and whatever this was_. He waits for a few moments and glances at his watch. After nine already, maybe he could make it home for that programme in an hour…

Three sharp taps on the windowpane behind his head.

Sherlock is standing behind him, gesturing and mouthing something with lips a cherry blossom, a peach, a plum, rubbed pink in the cold. John blinks.

_What the hell are you doing to yourself, Watson?_

“What are you doing?” John mouths back.

“My coat,” he can hear Sherlock say through the glass.

“Come in and get it then.” John mouths again.

“Can’t.”

 _Why am I doing this?_ John thinks as he scoots to the end of the booth seat. _Why am I doing this?_ John thinks as he gathers up the coat in his arms and shuffles over to the front door, passing behind the man in the green jacket. _Why am I doing this?_ John thinks as he pulls open the door and shoves the coat into Sherlock’s arms. 

“Here.”

“Go in and get your coat, tell Angelo to give the prawn linguine to the man in the green jacket, and leave through the back staff door.”

“Oh and I’m just to follow you after paying the tab, hm? Convenient.” John suppresses a shiver. His jumper feels awfully thin against the night air. His stomach flips and he knows better than to think it’s the wine. 

“Don’t be absurd. You’re not paying.”

“Well I’m not leaving without paying.”

“You _are_ leaving, now, with me, and paying doesn’t matter.”

“It does to Angelo.” 

“Stop wasting time!”

“No, you’re wasting _my_ time. I’m going home—”

Suddenly an indescribably complex look passes over Sherlock’s face and John realizes he’s stopped speaking mid-sentence. He’s not going home.

“Do you want to help me catch a murderer or not.” Sherlock remembers the coat in his arms and stuffs his body into it.

“Well.”

“Go on then.”

John’s head is clear and his jacket warm and heavy on his shoulders as he follows Sherlock down Northumberland Street. Behind them, a man in a green jacket tucks into a plate of steaming prawn linguine, having just been stood up on a date with a consulting detective without his knowledge. John forgets that he was ever hungry at all.

 

*****

 

The next six hours pass in a whirlwind: running through crisscrossing alleyways, paying off an old lady dressed as a man pretending to be a vicar (?), collecting leftover perfume sachets from bins behind no fewer than sixteen flats, paying an impromptu visit to some hastily spotted public loos to wash off some suspicious-looking white power that Sherlock helpfully sneezed all over both of them whilst crawling around some bins in the loading dock behind Selfridges. Finally, a long cab ride to an address Sherlock seemingly pulls out of his brain from nowhere. John’s pulse beats a quick rhythm in his veins and it’s nothing to do with exertion. For not a few moments over the course of the evening, John felt the air between them bloom, something tender and small and growing amidst furtive glances and licked lips and the nuances of things carefully unsaid. They fall in together, a unit, without either of them deciding.

At the end of those six hours, John finds himself assigned lookout, crouching beneath a particularly sad-looking rhododendron bush in the back garden of a nondescript house somewhere in Brixton. His legs ache, his feet ache, his lungs ache, and his ears ache from the absolute silence. He’s carefully listening for any noises from Sherlock, who is currently rummaging through what appeared to be a dubious looking shed and what has turned out to be the nexus of the whole poisoned perfume operation. He feels, on the whole, fucking fantastic. It was all he could do not to burst into a grin right then and there, rhododendron bush as witness be damned.

Sherlock is unlike anyone else John’s ever met. A consulting detective, apparently. Charming, a bit of an arsehole. Handsome. Staggeringly brilliant. There’s something almost vulnerable, self-protective about him that John can glimpse before he blinks and it’s covered up by a flash of teeth and haughty eye-rolling. John’s barely known him but a few hours, and yet.

 _What is it about you_ , John thinks, _that makes me want to give you everything?_

Suddenly, there’s the sound of metal scraping on metal, followed by a crash, followed by a muffled curse, and John’s heart stutters behind his ribs.

“Sherlock?” John stage-whispers into the crack of the open shed door.

A car pulls up along the pavement alongside the garden wall and idles for a few moments with the driver still inside. Lights flick on within the house as the car’s engine cuts out. From his position John can hear the click of the car door open.

_Shit._

“Sherlock!” He tries again, with no response. Clenching his teeth, he scrambles half bent over across the short distance to the shed and swiftly eases the door enough to pass through, then eases it shut, as quickly as he can. The light in the shed is almost nil, but John can see that Sherlock is frozen in the center of the small space, metal shelves and tiny wooden tables with glass instruments and vials of multicoloured liquid and other questionable scientific equipment surrounding him in quite a diabolical tableau. The source of the crash is evident on the floor. A dented mental shelf is at Sherlock’s feet, half covering a selection of broken glass containers whose contents are somehow now…smoking.

 _I started this evening thinking I had a cabbie from hell but at least I was meeting Rob on a blind date in a nice little Italian bistro_ , John thinks, _and now I’m somewhere in a fucking shed in Brixton in what could be a fucking meth lab or worse basically about die from poisonous fume inhalation or at the very least get arrested alongside a madman who I can’t stop thinking about kissing._

“John, quickly!” Sherlock, eyes huge, deftly steps over the mess at his feet and pushes past John, one arm shooting out in front of him to shove open the shed’s door just as someone starts to open it from the outside.

“Sherlock, wait—”

A heavy thud as the door hits something solid, a pitiful groan, then another thud as that something solid hits the ground without any mediation. Sherlock steps rather cautiously out from the shed, John behind him. A man is sprawled where they stand, one leg akimbo, knocked out cold. His red and white striped tracksuit splayed against the melty snow makes him look like a rather overweight candy cane stuck haphazardly into a spread of subpar icing. The gold chain around his neck glints in the moonlight beneath the nasty looking gash across the man’s face.

“Oh.” Sherlock blinks.

“This man needs medical attention.” John drops to a knee and presses two fingers to the inside of a (fake) Rolexed wrist.

“This man is responsible for the deaths of multiple people.”

“Exactly, which means in order to go to prison he can’t first bleed to death in his garden.”

Sherlock swirls in his coat, turning his back to John as he dials and then barks orders into his mobile. John half-listens as he continues taking the man’s vitals and doing what he can about the cut, which is essentially nothing.

“Lestrade. We’ve got him. Three forty five Brailsford Road, Brixton. What do you mean _we_? We! John and I. We had an incident with a shed door. He’s fine, marginally. Don’t be an idiot.” Sherlock rings off.

“Who’s that, the police?”

“Like I said, marginally.”

They wait for approximately seven minutes, during which time the man wakes up and is reminded of his injuries none too kindly by Sherlock’s provocation of a growling grimace or two upon hearing the excited re-telling of his horrific crimes. John doesn’t quite follow all the leaps in logic and the scientific explanations of the finer points of distilling poisonous substances, but he watches Sherlock’s mouth, his eyes, the way his whole body seems to vibrate as he leans in and out and spins circles around their little garden party, his voice a melody of intellectual triumph.

 _He’s glowing_ , John thinks, _and he doesn’t know_.

John, for his part, stands quietly over the man, occasionally punctuating Sherlock’s monologue with a stifled “brilliant” and a few low kicks to a shin wrapped in red and white coated nylon.

A few minutes later a silver-haired man pulls up in a police car, followed by two others. The man’s called DI Lestrade, John learns during a warm handshake coupled with a weary glance over at Sherlock, and he’s here to arrest one Mr. Marshall Goodwin on several charges, not least murder. Lestrade is surprisingly amiable for nearing four o’clock in the morning, gets the necessary information from Sherlock, nods approvingly at John, glances between the two of them, and thankfully says nothing. The shed is quickly wrapped in some sort of protective covering before three techs start working on its contents. John watches DI Lestrade cup Mr. Goodwin’s head with his hand as he eases him handcuffed into the back of the police car.

“Hm.” Sherlock hasn’t spoken in what feels like ages but probably is around two and a half minutes. He turns to John, a serious furrow between his eyebrows. “Never did like tracksuits.”

John laughs, and it feels like a sunrise.

He’s forgotten that he’s cold, that he hasn’t eaten since lunch yesterday, that he’s been running every which way over London for hours upon hours, that he’s had his intellect and his stamina questioned, that it’s now the wee hours of the morning, that he was originally supposed to meet a man called…what was his name again?

Sherlock looms in front of him in the dark and John wraps a hand around the back of his neck and kisses him.

A little noise hums its way out of Sherlock’s throat as John feels smooth lips open against him. Warm wet and hint of wine and something minty. Sherlock’s mouth, _his mouth_ , _his gloriously perfect mouth_ , he can taste the brilliance and the beating heart of the man. They kiss for a few moments until someone hollers at them from the shed. Sherlock pulls his head back just slightly to murmur something against John’s lips.

“Dinner?”

“Starving.”

Sherlock smiles.

 _Never thought I’d fall in love next to a garden shed full of drugs in Brixton_ , John thinks, _but there you have it._ The thought’s rewarded with a kiss.


End file.
